Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds is in trouble. With his perjury trial underway, Bonds faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, as well as the tarnishing of his legacy. As if it wasn't already.

For three years we have waited for this. The date was March 2011, and everyone in San Francisco and anyone growing up with an awareness of Bonds would remember that date. The day is finally here.

Barry Bonds is the all-time career home run leader. Most fans are convinced that many of his home runs, especially those he hit during the latter part of his illustrious career, are tainted.

Others, however, wonder if it matters since some—possibility a majority—were hit against pitchers were aided by substances those in power frown upon.

Future Hall of Fame left-hander Tom Glavine, who has had to contend with Bonds as an opponent most of his career, has definite views.

We now know that cheating was a part of baseball for the last two decades. There are legitimate reasons to believe between 50 percent and 80 percent of players were using some form of performance enhancing drugs. For many, the improvements flew under the radar, preventing suspicion.

But in a few belligerent examples of perceived immunity, players exploded for other-worldly numbers. These are a few of the most glaring examples of such seasons.  

Baseball has always been a sport based mainly upon tradition. People fear change, and Major League Baseball is no different.

Nearly everything you see on this list comes from the past 35 years or so. Prior to that time, there was little room for individuality in the game. It was about tradition and the team. Players weren't supposed to bring any added attention to themselves except from their play on the field.

St. Louis muscleman Albert Pujols has done a pretty good job of imprinting himself on Major League Baseball's collective consciousness these past several months as followers of the grand old game have been compelled to consider a radical change of venue for the stand-out Cardinal first baseman.  

The Seattle Mariners recently signed Moises Hernandez to a minor league contract. Not a huge deal, right? Well, he's the brother of reigning AL Cy Young Felix Hernandez.

I'll get into more specifics on that later in the next slide.

I started to think, though. How many other brother combinations have there been, and often did the shared genes translated to shared talent? The best duo was Lloyd and Paul Waner, who are both hall of famers.

This winter is going to be long and hard for Pennsylvania sports fans, as the Pittsburgh Steelers ended a promising season with a Super Bowl loss to the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Pirates begin what will likely be a record setting 19th straight losing season.
 

Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) have tarnished the last twenty years of Major League Baseball, and that is sad.  After witnessing perhaps the greatest era of individual performance in the game’s history during the last twenty years or so, we are forced to live with the reality that a lot of those accomplishments are tainted.  The problem now faced by those who love and respect the game is their lack of full knowledge of which of those accomplishments, of the records attained, are tainted and which are clean.  And

It is almost a foregone conclusion that, barring catastrophic failures, Alex Rodriguez will replace Barry Bonds as baseball’s all-time home run leader.  After he does, however, is there any other current player with a realistic chance of reaching 784 (Rodriguez’s projected total) and beyond?

Could that player be Albert Pujols?

Possibly, but it’s not likely.

Beginning with Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro we have seen that the Hall of Fame voters are not looking fondly on nominees that have their pasts tied to performance enhancing drugs.

Looking back to the stars that emerged in the late 1980's and through into the early 2000's, an alarming number of our favorite players were implicated in the steroids scandal.

Baseball saw some of the most hallowed and revered records in our national past time broken by the games modern athletes. Home run records fell, pitchers seemed ageless, and mediocre players became great.